An article in the Times recently reported on a surgeon whose mastectomy surgery is being questioned by a former patient. But Dalrymple says the article is practically worthless:
…it tells us nothing useful whatever about whether or not the surgeon was to blame for the recurrence of her cancer. A single case like this, while tragic, is not sufficient to make a judgment. I am not saying that the surgeon was not to blame, but simply that there is no relevant information in the newspaper report, not a single fact, to make any valid judgment as to whether he was or not. The story as told is pure emotional overindulgence of the kind that is now a horrible national characteristic.